


Traditions

by ireadhpinenochian



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Christmas Fluff, Established Relationship, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Ugly Holiday Sweaters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-10
Updated: 2015-03-10
Packaged: 2018-03-17 07:28:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3520613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ireadhpinenochian/pseuds/ireadhpinenochian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean introduces Cas into the wonderful world of Christmas traditions, throwing in a few Winchester traditions along the way. Sam hates them both.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Traditions

Sam burst into laughter when he saw Dean walk into the kitchen.

“What—“ he choked out, “What the hell are you wearing?”

Dean looked down at his bright red sweater with an almost neon green Christmas tree covered in what looked like small beads in place of the lights, and then back up at Sam. “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?” he asked.

Sam raised his brows at him. “Really, Dean?”

Dean just shrugged and walked past Sam towards the coffee machine. “I like it,” he said. “It even lights up,” he added, turning around to give Sam the double eyebrow raise.

Sam snorted into his cup of coffee. “And you’re bragging about it?”

“Yeah, man,” Dean said, pulling a little black switch out of what seemed like thin air. “Look.” He flipped the switch and the little beads strung around the violently green tree lit up in bright blue, yellow and orange. “Awesome, right?” He looked up at Sam expectantly, excitement radiating from his lopsided smile.

“That’s… one word for it,” Sam replied, trying to keep his voice even.

“Come on, man!” Dean said, holding his hands out to the side, as if Sam just hadn’t gotten a good enough view to fall in love with it. “It’s awesome!”

Sam just snorted out another laugh. “If you say so, Dean.”

“Well, I do,” Dean told him, turning back around so that he could pour himself some coffee.

“Where did you even get that, anyway?” Sam asked. “I don’t think they sell light up sweaters at Salvation Army.”

Dean just shrugged. “You’d be surprised.”

Cas decided to take that moment to stumble his way into the kitchen. Sam looked over to wish him a good morning but cut himself off when he saw what he was wearing. A forest green sweater with a giant cartoon reindeer topped off with a glowing red nose. He looked back to Dean who was staring a little too fondly at the former angel.

“Morning, Cas,” Dean said, pouring another cup of coffee and handing it over to a still bleary eyed Cas.

“Good morning,” he mumbled back, landing a kiss halfway on Dean’s lips, too tired to take proper aim.

Dean just smiled happily and turned around to rummage through the cabinets. “Pancakes sound good?”

Cas hummed an agreement over the lip of his coffee cup as he took a sip. “That sounds wonderful, thank you, Dean.”

Ten minutes later Dean was plating pancakes and placing one in front of Cas, dropping a kiss to his unruly head of hair.

“Dig in,” he said.

Cas did so with enthusiasm, only stopping to look over at Sam who was glaring at Dean.

“Did you want some pancakes as well?” Cas asked him.

Sam opened his mouth to reply in the affirmative, but Dean cut him off before he could.

“He doesn’t like our sweaters,” he accused, pointing a forkful of pancake dripping with syrup at his brother.

Cas’ face fell and he looked down. “What’s wrong with our sweaters?” he asked. “I thought it was traditional for this time of year. Granted, I don’t quite understand the relationship between the birth of Christ and flying reindeer, but I suppose I’m less confused by that than the fact that the day of celebration is actually a pagan holiday. Dean assures me that none of that matters, though, so I’ve accepted that I find the reindeer _cute_ ,” he pronounced the word as if he wasn’t quite sure he was using it correctly or not, “and haven’t concerned myself with trying to understand how people have convinced themselves that a mammal as large as a reindeer could fly, let alone manage to pull a sleigh through the air.”

“Yeah,” Dean added. “And don’t even get him started on Rudolph’s nose.”

Cas huffed in annoyance and looked down at his sweater. “It is a ridiculous notion, but I quite enjoyed the story nonetheless.” He cast a small smile down at the cartoon reindeer with his glowing nose.

“I never said I didn’t like your sweater, Cas,” Sam told him.

“Oh, that’s right,” Dean said. “He just said that he didn’t like mine.”

Cas frowned and looked from Dean over to Sam. “You don’t like Dean’s sweater? But I thought it would be festive because it lights up. Again, the tree is from the original pagan holiday, but—“

“I didn’t say I didn’t like Dean’s sweater,” Sam cut in once he caught sight of the kicked puppy look that Cas was sporting. “I—I think they’re great. Very festive.”

“Great, because Cas bought you one, too,” Dean said.

Sam turned to face his brother who was giving him the biggest shit eating grin he’d ever seen.

“Please,” Cas said, “don’t feel like you have to wear it if you truly don’t like it. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable in your clothing.”

“No,” Sam assured him. “I’m sure I’ll love it! Where is it, I’ll put it on right now.”

Sam left the remainder of his breakfast on the table to go and find the sweater Cas had claimed was on the table in the war room. He didn’t manage to catch the wink that Dean sent Cas’ way, or the little smirk that lifted the corner of Cas’ mouth.

—

Sam’s sweater lit up, too. It was blue with a giant cartoon moose on the front, beads of light strung around the antlers. He looked for about five minutes, but he couldn’t find any sort of switch to turn the lights off. He grimaced as he pulled it on over his head. It was warm where the lights glowed brightly on his chest. That had to be a fire hazard. He was going to be pissed if he’d survived monsters and demons this long to be taken out by the ugliest sweater on the planet.

“Yo, Sammy!” Dean called from another room. “Hurry up, man! Time to go pick out a tree!”

Sam sighed in defeat as he made his slow way towards the garage.

Dean and Cas were already sitting in the Impala by the time Sam got there, speaking in low voices—and was that—did Dean just giggle? Sam really did not want to know. He’d been woken up by their nighttime escapades one too many times to try and pry when the two were looking at each other like that.

Sam slid into the backseat with an eyeroll.

“Took you long enough,” Dean said, starting the engine and pulling out of the garage much more quickly than Sam thought was strictly necessary.

It took them about ten minutes before they were pulling up to a shopping center, half of the parking lot blocked off by a chain link fence for a small field of Christmas trees.

“Alright,” Dean said, turning the ignition off. “First things first, we don’t have any decorations so we’re going to have to go inside to buy some ornaments and Christmas lights.”

Sam just shrugged. “Sounds good,” he said, making his way out of the car, shivering slightly at the breeze that had kicked up. He was almost appreciating the warm glow of the lights on his sweater. Almost.

Dean and Cas got out of the car a few moments later and Sam did a double take.

“What the hell happened to your sweaters?” Sam demanded.

Cas hid a small smile behind a feigned cough, but Dean had no problem bursting into laughter.

“Come on, Sammy,” he said. “You didn’t think we’d actually wear those things outside, did you? In public?” He dissolved into laughter again.

“You were in on this, too?” Sam accused, turning to Cas.

“It’s not a Christmas tradition,” Cas admitted, “but Dean assured me that a prank war was Winchester tradition.”

Dean walked around the car to Cas to slap a hand on his shoulder. “It was his initiation,” Dean said, “to the Winchester way.”

“You guys are such assholes,” Sam grumbled, crossing his arms tightly over his chest to make his way across the busy parking lot.

“You did great, babe,” he could hear Dean telling Cas as they followed behind him.

“Thank you,” Cas replied in his graveled tone, sounding more pleased than Sam thought he had any right to be.

“You’ll be a proper Winchester in no time,” Dean said.

Sam rolled his eyes. “Why don’t you just marry him?” he said in his best impression of a grumpy five year old.

There was a short silence in which Sam had to remind himself not to feel guilty for making things awkward since they were the jerks that tricked Sam into wearing a hideous fire hazard.

“You know,” Dean said, as they got to the door. “That’s not a bad idea.”

Sam fumbled trying to grab the door handle, sure he had misheard his brother, the commitment-phobe.

“What do you say, Cas? Wanna get hitched?”

“Traditionally speaking, that was a fairly horrible proposal,” Cas replied.

Sam turned around in time to see Dean’s face begin to fall.

“But I’ve found that I prefer the Winchester way.”

The grin returned to Dean’s face. “Is that a yes?”

Cas nodded. “That is a yes.”

Sam had to turn away in order to avoid further scarring himself from their enthusiastic response to their engagement. He stomped his way into the store and glared at anyone who gave him a funny look at the sight of him in his ridiculous sweater.

—

The day of Dean and Cas’ wedding (more like the day of their appointment at the courthouse) Sam hid all of their clothes save for their light up sweaters. He was almost too annoyed at the fact that they didn’t even seem to notice they were getting married in the most hideous sweaters on the planet to be happy for them. Almost.


End file.
